Wait 'till you see my next photo, babycakes...
So apparently this phenomena that shocked the media and even led to the prosecution of an over 18 “sexter” when naked photos of his ex-girlfriend hit the web is not limited to teens. According to new studies, the baby boomer generation, as in, my dad and your mom, sext more than teens do. So before you pick up your parents phone to look at their pictures, think: do I really want to?
Read the article below on News Now for more info:
Sorry, but you should have laid off of the Christmas cookies. You are obviously no longer beautiful- get off our turf.
So, the online dating scandal of the week has surfaced: thousands of members have been kicked off of Beautifulpeople.com, which claims to be just for the gorgeous, supposedly because they posted pictures of themselves over the holidays and New Year, which apparently weren’t too flattering. Robert Hinze, the founder of the site, actually referred to the supposed online beauty perpetrators as “fatties.” Sounds like a well-bred man.
Besides the fact that the website, and its founder, are ridiculous because well, they are, here’s my opinion: It is impossible on an online dating site to EVER get people to put up photos of how they really look. Because people are putting their best foot forward precisely because of the fact that photos are what people see first, they know that they better be good. That means they might use a picture from three years ago when they were tan and 120 lbs, even if now they aren’t close to that.
So now that we know that people put up their A+ photos, let’s think about how we can actually find out- as the online dating peruser, which of the men or women we’ve picked out on a site based on their photos and profile would actually be attractive to us if we met them in real life? Because this is the ultimate challenge of online dating: finding someone online who you would actually be compatible with and attracted to face-to-face.
There are a few answers to this question.
1) We can follow up on someone ourselves (facebook, myspace, etc.)
2) We can talk to friends who actually know them
3) We can choose our sites wisely, as in the ones who have verification systems for their members
#’s 2 and 3 are only available on one site and one site (or rather network) only. Meezoog created itself as a network precisely so that people could correspond with their prospects in a supportive environment: with information from their friends and member verifications, instead of blindly hoping that “Nycrichhottie” is actually rich and a hottie (of which he is probably neither). Also, because Meezoog only signs up people with their real names, you can check up on them on facebook before you even hit the “message me” button. Basically, Meezoog is on the up and up. It’s the only dating mechanism online that enables you to come as close as possible to “what you see is what you get.”
But let’s forget about Meezoog for a minute and go back to Beautifulpeople again. Why is the concept so ridiculous? Well, for one, because beauty, as the saying goes, is only skin deep. I, for one, would much rather subscribe to a site for ‘smart people who care about the world’ than one for beautiful people, who can often be self-absorbed, callous, and aloof. But that’s just me.
However, on second thought, let’s let this site thrive, and consume all of the people of the caliber of, for example, Ms. Cooke, one of the site’s loyal members.
“Ms. Cooke says that she’s been on one date since joining the BeautifulPeople.com late last year (so obviously, the site is really working), and that had the man she went out with appeared “chubbier” than he advertised in his photo, she would have been disappointed. After all, it’s beautiful people, she says, and not fat people, who she wants to date.” (ABC News)
Enough said there.
So let’s let these high-caliber individuals take themselves out of the dating market by mating with one another…that is unless they decide to cheat on their “beautiful” significant others or spouses. Oh, no worries, there’s a site for that too. Welcome Ashley Madison, for cheaters who want to have affairs on the sly by putting their photos on the internet. People are just so smart.
Let the scandals continue…
We make plenty of resolutions each New Year’s, most of which we don’t keep. This New Year’s, why don’t we make resolutions that are a) feasible (as in, not “lose fifty pounds and make a million dollars”) and b) that will help improve our happiness factor and make us more available and desirable as a mate.
Follow this list, and you may be kissing your fiancée come next holiday season.
Remember the early days of AOL, when random people would IM you and ask a/s/l? And you would go, eww, what a creepo. Or maybe you would respond, but with a fake age, location, and description. As in, “I’m blonde from California, I have 34D breasts and weigh 110 lbs, and I’m 18 years old,” Of course, you were actually breast-less with braces, had crazy brownish-blond curls (not the good kind of curls), and weighed 120 lbs. Oh, and you were 11 years old. Ok, well maybe that was just me.
But regardless, the reason that I never provided any inquirers will real information about myself (aside from the fact that no one would have wanted to talk to me had I given them my actual description), was in respect to my safety.
I am from one of those little small suburbian towns where nothing ever happens. That is, until the birth of online. A girl from a neighboring town who went to Catholic school (go figure), met an older man at the mall who she had met online. Two days later, her body was found in a dumpster.
And the stories persist….Look at the link below to see more instances of when people aren’t who they say they are…
http://www.dangersofinternetdating.com/articles/cybercrime.htm
Yet somehow with the splurge of online dating, and with the seemingly increasing need for many people to find that special someone, the things our mothers told us never to do, we do, and do without thinking.
Yet now murder isn’t the only thing that can happen from meeting someone online. Welcome to the era of easy money transfers and scam artists.
This article, http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2009/12/06/news/6503547.txt, from Sunday’s paper, details how a Nigerian man exploited a woman “just looking for love” on match.com, for almost 50,000 dollars.
And apparently, she isn’t the only one. And the scam artists aren’t only men.
So this article is a plea to women, to men, to children, to whoever, to stay safe. Even though the internet may just seem like the best way to communicate today, don’t give out too much information, if you meet someone you met online, meet them at a public place, and for the love of g-d, even if they are as cute as their picture, do not go home with them!! Remember, you know nothing about this person other than what they have told you.
One of the most important features of Meezoog, and why I like it so much, is because no person appears without a context. Every potential mate is connected to you through one of your friends, which gives you the ability to check up on that potential mate through someone you know and trust. And accepting a “friend request” isn’t as easy as that- you must indicate how well you know the person, the last time you talked to them, and where you know them from.
On top of all this, people join Meezoog with their real names, not with silly usernames that allow people to get away with scams like the guy from Nigeria did on match, or to get away with literally, murder.
So if you are going to online date, do it safely. Do it on Meezoog.
Also, not knowing someone doesn’t only apply to online- even if you go on a date with someone you met at a bar, say- remember that that the only things you know about him are what he decides to tell you. Yes, even if you are facebook friends- if you have no friends in common, or the friends you have in common you don’t even really know, then you are still s.o.l., and could be on your way to disaster.
(Oh, and don’t trust the people around you in a public place to intervene should your date do something strange. I saw a social psychology video where the couple at the bar saw a girl’s date put some kind of drug into her drink when she went to the bathroom, and only one out of four couples intervened to the extent that they wouldn’t let the girl leave the bar with her date (the people on the date were actors of course). Remember, the bystander effect is a b****)
